The nonprofit that runs Denver’s public-access media facility is rallying its users and 300-plus members to appeal to Mayor Hancock to keep the operation in its current home, and to hear their concerns about possible staff and service cuts.

The city’s contract with Denver’s Open Media Foundation — the public’s open-access resource for media training and production — expires in two months. The city has proposed moving the TV, radio and video production equipment from its office at 700 Kalamath St. (also home to The Colorado Independent and other nonprofits) where it has been operating for 12 years, to temporary quarters in the City and County Building. Production would later move to Rocky Mountain PBS’s new headquarters at 21st and Arapahoe streets in downtown Denver. That downtown facility is slated to open in 2020, and the city’s purchasing about 4,500 square feet of space there.

Ann Theis, Denver Open Media station director, recently issued an alarm about the proposed changes, posting an appeal to public access supporters:

“I am writing you today to let you know that the City of Denver has released a Request for Proposals that puts the future of Denver Open Media and Public Access TV at a critical turning-point. … If you don’t make your voice heard, Denver Open Media will cease to exist as we’ve known it by the end of 2018.”

The city’s RFP calls for the Public Access office to be consolidated from a team that currently has four full-time staffers down to a single individual. Open Media leaders have warned this will dramatically reduce the level of service to the public in regard to training, administration, fundraising, and video and web consulting. The vision laid out in the RFP makes it impossible for the hundreds of individuals and nonprofit and government clients who use Open Media every year to reap the same benefits they do now, the organization says. Among Open Media’s clients are hundreds of producers — youth, artists and nonprofits included — who create more than 2,000 shows and podcasts a year that are broadcast over local channels.

Denver has been anticipating the need for changes in public-access media services, said Jenny Schiavone, the city’s marketing director. That’s in large part because public access receives funding from fees paid by cable subscribers, who are increasingly ditching cable.

Those cable subscription fees not only benefit public access, but also Channel 22, operated by Denver Public Schools and Emily Griffith Technical College, and Channel 8, a government channel operated by the city. The city oversees allocation of the fees to the three sources, and Tony Shawcross, executive director of the Open Media Foundation, says that funding for public access media has taken a bigger hit than that for Channels 8 and 22 in recent years. Having the city control the distribution of that funding presents a “conflict of interest,” he says.

And Shawcross questions the city’s motives after the current contract ends, saying that by slashing and potentially relocating staff that oversees public-access media, Denver is further consolidating its power over public media, and restricting access to it.

“The RFP is set up to have one individual accountable directly to Julie (Martinez, director of Denver media services), who’ll take whatever crumbs she gives them out of the fund,” Shawcross said. “What’s going on here is a huge conflict (of interest) and there’s no one at the city willing to step up and say we need more eyeballs involved in this funding distribution.”

Schiavone, who works with Martinez, pushed back.

“I don’t believe there’s a conflict,” she said. “What we’re doing isn’t dissimilar from a lot of other cities. There’s not one prescriptive way of doing it, but in a lot of cities the (government) has the oversight.”

There’s no power grab afoot, Schiavone added.

“We’re not trying to take control of the operation,” she said. “We don’t today, and won’t in this new model, either.”

4 COMMENTS

“That’s in large part because public access receives funding from fees paid by cable subscribers, who are increasingly ditching cable.”

What’s interesting, and not being widely disclosed, about the “cable cutting” trend is that the same largest firms that own most of the largest cable tv companies also own most of the largest streaming companies.

They don’t care if you ditch cable, they get their profits back on their held corporate assets that operate streaming services and satellite operators.

Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube (Alphabet), Verizon, Dish, DirectTV (AT&T), etc. are all owned by many of the same largest institutional shareholders, whom operate collablorative, forming virtual monopolies amongst the largest “competing” corporations in most every single industry (source = morningstar.com).

Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street are among the largest institutional investors. Fidelity, Invesco, and other money-management firms are also the largest investors of each (source – morningstar.com).

This is one of the constructs of the new American “Planned Market Economy” (that is, “capitalism” for only a select few).
Corporate consolidations have happened covertly via large share holdings.

Technology is often a way to stay ahead of and beat legislation and regulations. Therefore, streaming services can work outside the regulations that apply solely to “cable” television.

As stated by William McNabb, chairman and CEO of Vanguard, in 2015, “In the past, some have mistakenly assumed that our predominantly passive management style suggests a passive attitude with respect to corporate governance. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Thus, these money-management firms take an active role in the management of the corporations they own, and as such, can maintain uniformity and controls across their “competing” corporate assets….ensuring greater profits back to them.

In fact, the city has a lot of control over how the public access funds are used and often holds the purse strings pretty tight. From what I’ve seen of the RFP, the plan is to exert more control. I urge the city to allow public access to flourish, without restricting the location, staff numbers and other details that the city does not need to control. Any model that uses the allotted funds successfully should be free to operate this public resource. I urge everyone to become a basic member of Denver Open Media. Then, when the new contract is approved, the city should be required to provide services to the hundreds and hundreds of members.

Just one more issue to remember come next May’s municipal elections, along with just what Council Members actually listen to those who voted them in….and just as easily vote them OUT….along with other city personnel………

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OUR MISSION

The Colorado Independent's award-winning team of veteran investigative and explanatory reporters and news columnists aims to amplify the voices of Coloradans whose stories are unheard, shine light on the relationships between people, power and policy, and hold public officials to account. We strive to report the news with context, social conscience, and soul, and to give Coloradans the insight they need to promote conversation, understanding and progress in this square, swing state we call home.